Teens and young adult fans waited in line Saturday for a free meet and greet with “Love Island USA’s” TJ Palma at the Maplewood Mall.
“Love Island USA” is a reality dating show that follows a group of singles — called ‘islanders’ — at a luxury villa in Fiji. Over the summer, contestants pair up, compete in challenges and face recouplings, where they can choose new partners or stay with the same one. Those left single risk being dumped from the island, while the couples who survive move closer to winning both love and the grand prize of $100,000.
Palma, 23, is a social media personality and former college baseball player who lives in Tampa, Florida. He joined the show as a bombshell, a new contestant who enters the villa mid-season to stir up drama and test existing couples. He was eliminated a couple of weeks later after receiving the fewest votes from his fellow islanders.
Maplewood Mall manager George Roethemeyer said they bring in celebrities for meet-and-greets regularly, and Palma was invited because of the show’s popularity. Roethemeyer said he hopes attendees get to experience the mall when they come for a meet-and-greet.
“That’s why we do these events for free, so people can come in and see the mall, see what the mall has to offer and see that Maplewood Mall is a thriving mall and very much part of the community,” Roethemeyer said.
Fans greeted Palma with excitement, praising the show and his time on it while taking selfies, as he happily signed autographs.
Allison Hahm, 24, and Christly Sumihi, 23, fans who attended the event, said they got hooked on the show because of this season’s drama and learned about Palma’s meet-and-greet through a social media post. Hahm said she was surprised Palma held his meet-and-greet in Maplewood, while Sumihi said it was nice to see a cast member visit Minnesota.
“I think it’s really cool. It’s really interesting to have somebody from Love Island come to Minnesota. I was just happy to come and see him,” Sumihi said.
Hahm said she enjoyed watching the new twists this season, though she felt Palma’s on-screen personality didn’t fully match the humor he shares on social media. Sumihi said she liked the unfolding drama.
“It kinda felt like he was the balance to the chaos,” Hahm said. “Especially when he was still with Iris [Palma’s love interest and Season 7 cast member], they were just so calm and collected compared to the explosion of drama everywhere else in the villa.”
“It was most like the good part of the love story you want to see. The romance and the ‘falling-in-love’ part of reality TV,” Sumihi said.
Hahm said events like the meet-and-greet let fans experience a more realistic side of celebrities. She said that humanizing figures like Palma felt strange but not shocking.
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“It is reality TV, but it’s a screen and it kind of brings people back to the awareness that you’re meeting a person, just like you who’s been on these shows,” Hahm said.
Sumihi said fans often judge reality TV stars by what they see on screen, and events like this let people see different sides of them. “It’s just a TV show, things are edited. They’re a real person. So it’s about staying grounded,” she said.
Viewers can watch Love Island USA on Peacock and can watch the Season 7 reunion at 8 p.m. Aug. 25.
Gloria Ngwa is a summer 2025 reporting intern sponsored by the St. Paul Jaycees Foundation, in conjunction with ThreeSixty Journalism and the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists. Ngwa is a sophomore studying journalism at Northwestern University, where she writes for her school’s HerCampus chapter.
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